Upheaval and Retrieval

Living gratefully today, I appreciate time spent with my friend Liz and the energy a writing project can generate. I am grateful for morning quiet and a gathering of energy after waking up tired. 

The emotional exhaustion I have been feeling on and off in the last week has to do with reflecting on this past year. Recent days have marked various "one year since . . ." milestones. Though we go day to day, moving forward through pandemic circumstances that we have adjusted to, it still hits hard at times just how challenging and draining the past year has been.

The upheaval caused has touched most areas of our lives in big and small ways. I walk into a school every day for work, mostly only seeing the eyes of the students and my colleagues throughout the day. It is harder to recognize one another, harder to know how everyone is really doing, and more tiring to move physically and emotionally through the hours literally and figuratively masked. 

And yet we are used to it, and we know how important masks have been in protecting all of us. A face without a mask is the one that stands out now. We have masks in our cars, backpacks, desk drawers. They are part of our wardrobe, just like socks and shoes. 

One example of one upheaval. Upheaval leads to retrieval though. Retrieval of priorities. The normal I mostly took for granted has been gone for a long time. But I have retrieved a sense of normal that allows me to spend time with those I care about most, continue to pursue my writing passions, get up each day with enough hope and energy, even on the darkest days, to get out of bed and proceed. 

Upheaval. Retrieval. Major upheavals call for major retrievals of life's priorities. Living gratefully allows me to hang on through the ups and downs and grab on to the stabilizing forces. We can do this. We are doing this.